Residency- Barton Open School- 1 Hour
Today was my first day residing in a Language Arts classroom. Since it's near the end of the term for the students, there was a vocabulary review game scheduled.
The class period started out with "Word of the day," meaning a new vocabulary word being taught to them. The word was "cache." After hearing the meaning of the word, (which means a collection of items that's usually hidden) the teacher asked the students what kinds of items they've ever collected. Several students were eager to answer. Asking the students this was beneficial to their learning of the word because it made the word seem more personal to them. When a lesson becomes personal, it feels more relevant and important to know. Coming up with different examples of the word in context also better ingrains the meaning of the word into their memories.
After that, we went right into the review game. It was Jeopardy-style, with different categories, and each "question" was the word's definition, and it was up to the students to figure out the matching vocabulary word. The students were split up into teams, and the teacher allowed me to participate by joining a team. I couldn't be of much help, though, since I don't know the exact words they'd been studying, but at one point I did happen to guess the correct word, "enigma," just because it came to mind as a possible match for the definition.
This exercise was a review, not a lesson. Most of the students seemed to know their vocabulary adequately, but this exercise enabled them to have a bit of extra support when needed. While the end-goal is to know this vocabulary on their own, but during the review-stage of their learning, having a bit more help is still appropriate.
After class, the teacher and I discussed possibilities for lessons I could do. We had discussed before doing something that relates to social justice, so we talked about that once more. We also got the idea for me to do a lesson that relates to the John Steinbeck book the students will be reading, such as instructing them on how to do a visual adapatation.